I wield power with my innate talents, and forge the Heavenly Court.

Chapter 201 A crushing defeat, the proliferation of ghosts

In mid-December, Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong joined forces and marched eastward into Southern Zhili, besieging Luzhou Prefecture.

However, they fought for seven days and seven nights but still couldn't take it.

Fearing being surrounded again, they had no choice but to temporarily withdraw their troops.

They then turned east and captured Chaoxian and Hanshan, before besieging Quanjiao.

After taking Quanjiao, Gao Yingxiang and his men planned to find an opportunity to cross the Yangtze River and head straight for Nanjing, the secondary capital of the Ming Dynasty.

Upon receiving the news, Chongzhen was immediately enraged and repeatedly urged Lu Xiangshan to quell the rebels as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, looking at the golden dragon symbolizing the nation's destiny above the capital, Chongzhen's eyes gleamed, and his heart stirred with renewed ambition.

Previously, he wanted to use the power of the Golden Dragon of the Dynasty's Fortune to attack Datong and Xuanfu, but he was devoured by the incarnation of the Golden Dragon of the Dynasty's Fortune.

Therefore, he was never sure what the consequences would be if he used the Golden Dragon of National Fortune to launch an attack.

Originally, when Zhang Xianzhong captured Zhongdu Fengyang and burned down the Zhu family's ancestral tombs, he had also prepared to take action.

However, at that time, Emperor Chongzhen had not fully recovered and had no way to split the golden dragon of national destiny into two separate entities.

Now, he has finally recovered somewhat and is able to withstand the creation of clones once again.

However, the thought of the pain of splitting into clones and tearing apart his soul made him hesitate.

In the end, he decided to wait.

He really didn't want to tear his soul apart again unless absolutely necessary.

On the other hand, seeing the tense situation and with Chongzhen's urging, Lu Xiang-sheng certainly dared not be negligent and did not even celebrate the New Year of the eighth year of Chongzhen's reign.

They traveled day and night, arriving in Zhongdu Fengyang from Henan on the first day of the Lunar New Year, where they mobilized troops from all directions to encircle and suppress the enemy.

Upon seeing that Ming reinforcements had arrived, Gao Yingxiang and Zhang Xianzhong also strengthened their defenses in Nanjing.

They had no choice but to abandon their plan to cross the river, lift the siege of Quanjiao, and head north again to begin the siege of Chuzhou Prefecture.

Thanks to Zhang Xianzhong's brutality, the soldiers and civilians of Chuzhou fought desperately and held out until the eighth day of the first lunar month.

Just as the city was about to be breached, Lu Xiang-sheng's army finally arrived at Wuliqiao, five miles east of Chuzhou.

Zu Kuan and his three thousand Guan Ning cavalry took the lead, charging at the forefront of the entire army.

Lu Xiang-sheng personally led three hundred of his personal guards in the center, directing the various troops to charge forward.

This fierce battle raged from dawn until nightfall, leaving mountains of corpses and rivers of blood. The overwhelming aura of iron and blood intertwined, staining the entire battlefield crimson.

In the end, the rebel army led by Gao Yingxiang and others could no longer hold out and began to collapse completely.

Lu Xiang-sheng commanded the Ming army to pursue relentlessly, chasing them all the way from the east of Chuzhou City to the foot of Guanshan Mountain in the northwest, leaving corpses strewn across the fields and rivers of blood flowing.

It can be said that corpses piled up and filled ditches, and the Chu River stopped flowing.

In the end, it was Gao Yingxiang, Zhang Xianzhong and others who led their personal guards to break out under the cover of night, barely escaping the pursuit.

For the next few days, the surrounding area was filled with a bloodthirsty aura. Within a few miles, the chirping of birds, beasts, and insects ceased. When people passed by, they could vaguely hear shouts of killing.

Occasionally, one can even see some illusory soldiers fighting.

Once they spot civilians, these illusory soldiers will turn around and hunt them down.

However, those illusory soldiers seemed to be subject to some kind of restriction and could not truly escape.

Often, after a period of pursuit and the fleeing civilians, they would collapse and then reappear on distant battlefields to continue their battles.

Clearly, they are just like the ghosts in the territory of the People's Salvation Army; they are also the souls of the dead, fused with the spiritual power of the people and the energy of the surrounding heaven and earth.

Because they are evolved from the souls of fallen soldiers, they can also be called battle spirits, and they will continue to repeat the fighting state they were in before they died.

However, the energy of heaven and earth outside the territory of the Salvation Army is five times thinner than that inside the Salvation Army's territory.

Therefore, they did not evolve the power to interfere with reality and kill humans immediately.

However, as the story spreads further and more spiritual energy gathers, the power of these ghosts is rapidly increasing.

It probably won't be long before they are able to directly harm humans.

Lu Xiang-sheng had naturally heard about the situation at the battlefield.

However, at this crucial moment in suppressing the uprising, he had little time to spare and simply left the matter to the prefect of Chuzhou before turning his attention to the rebels.

Faced with Lu Xiang-sheng's order, Zhong Dao-nan, the prefect of Chuzhou, was speechless with astonishment.

Although he had also cultivated some spiritual strength in the process of reading and practicing calligraphy in the past.

But isn't it giving him too much credit to deal with those ghosts and monsters?

However, he had no choice but to obey the orders from Lu Xiang-sheng, the governor of the four provinces, and began to send people to investigate.

On the other hand, after the Battle of Chuzhou, the main force of the uprising army suffered more than half its losses, and its morale was severely damaged.

After much deliberation, Gao Yingxiang decided to head north and launch another surprise attack on Zhongdu Fengyang, partly to salvage some supplies to replenish his losses and partly to boost morale.

However, to his surprise, the Ming army was well-prepared this time.

Zhu Dadian, the Grand Canal Transport Commissioner, personally led more than 10,000 Ming troops to garrison Fengyang. Gao Yingxiang took one look at the situation.

Well, it seems the Ming army was prepared. Let's not fight then.

In the end, Gao Yingxiang didn't even dare to fight, and immediately turned around and headed west.

At this moment, the rebel army was in dire straits, pursued by Lu Xiang-sheng's large army from behind and blocked by Zhu Da-dian from the front.

However, to Gao Yingxiang and others' relief,

Zhu Dadian lacked any sense of the bigger picture. Ordered to garrison Fengyang, he focused solely on defending the city and protecting the imperial tombs, showing no intention of seizing the opportunity to send troops to join Lu Xiangshan in suppressing the rebels. He feared that if he launched a pursuit, Gao Yingxiang and other rebels would take advantage of the situation.

Therefore, he watched helplessly as the rebel army marched west through Huaiyuan to Suzhou, then down to Xiaoxian, and finally back to Henan.

Upon hearing this news, Lu Xiang-sheng was so anxious that he stamped his feet, but there was nothing he could do.

Moreover, to be honest, although Zhu Dadian did not accomplish anything, he cannot be considered wrong. It can only be said that he lacked a sense of the big picture and only rigidly followed orders.

In the end, Lu Xiang-sheng could only continue his relentless pursuit in frustration.

At this time, after Gao Yingxiang's disastrous defeat in Chuzhou, he relied on the title of "Chuang King" to gain the support of many rebel armies along the way. In addition, with the help of the people he had coerced, his strength had recovered to some extent.

He conquered prefectures and counties in Henan Province, and even threatened the provincial capital, Kaifeng.

In February, Lu Xiang-sheng's army finally caught up with Gao Ying-xiang once again at Zhuxian Town, south of Kaifeng.

After a major battle, Gao Yingxiang suffered another crushing defeat, and his entire army retreated towards Nanyang.

Lu Xiang-sheng pursued relentlessly and finally caught up with Gao Ying-xiang and his rebel army at Qiding Mountain in Nanyang, handing the rebels another crushing defeat.

By this point, Gao Yingxiang's elite and extraordinary warriors had suffered heavy losses, their fighting power greatly diminished, and Zhang Xianzhong was also severely weakened.

Faced with Lu Xiang-sheng's relentless pursuit, the two decided, after some discussion, to split up and flee.

Zhang Xianzhong fled eastward into the Tongbai Mountains to hide.

Gao Yingxiang fled westward into the Yunyang mountain area.

Because the Guan Ning cavalry was not suited for mountain warfare and could not advance, this allowed Gao Yingxiang to catch his breath.

However, this is not without its drawbacks.

Mountainous areas are barren, so food and supplies are hard to find.

Even after Gao Yingxiang fled to Yunyang and captured Zhushan County, he only managed to obtain 600 shi of grain after thoroughly searching the land.

However, he had more than 20,000 men under his command.

In less than ten days, the 600 shi of grain they had seized were completely consumed.

At this time, Lu Xiang-sheng had already dispatched infantry to enter the Yunyang mountain area to encircle and suppress them.

Gao Yingxiang had no other choice but to lead his men westward, and in March they returned to the border area between Henan and Shaanxi, hoping to enter Shaanxi to rest and recuperate.

After receiving the message, Wang Chao hesitated for a moment before finally agreeing.

However, the dynasty also had a requirement: they could not stay in Shaanxi for long.

Gao Yingxiang readily agreed.

Right now, he just wants to find a safe place to rest and recuperate for a while.

As for what happens next, we'll talk about that later.

After entering Shaanxi, Gao Yingxiang and his companions almost felt as if they had entered another world.

It's important to know that Shaanxi was the first province conquered by a dynasty, and five or six years have passed since then, so it was naturally the first province to develop.

Within the city walls, the streets are wide and flat, lined with rows of three-story buildings, constructed of cement bricks and tiles, with bright and clean windows.

Well, as glass and cement are essential for time travelers, when the dynasty established the Weapons Manufacturing Division in the first year of the reign, they were distributed along with the manufacture of steel, guns, and so on.

Regardless of whether we can figure it out, let's do the research first.

In fact, the manufacture of glass and cement is much simpler than the manufacture of steel guns.

Naturally, glass and cement were also invented long ago.

Cement is used almost exclusively for road construction and building work in the territory of the People's Salvation Army.

In particular, breakthroughs in steam engine technology made mass production of steel bars possible in steel manufacturing.

Subsequently, many buildings began to use reinforced concrete structures, which were not only more robust but also faster to construct.

Especially for buildings facing the street, in order to gain more building space, they are basically three-story buildings.

When the dynasty first entered these streets, it couldn't help but feel a moment of disorientation.

For a moment, he almost thought he had returned to the modern world.

However, most of these three-story buildings are still in the style of traditional Chinese architecture, not the kind of buildings of later generations.

The crowds coming and going were all dressed in ancient costumes from the Ming Dynasty.

The Manchuanli that Gao Yingxiang was waiting to enter was a city full of modern atmosphere.

In fact, if Manchuanli had not been located on the border of Shaanxi, what Gao Yingxiang and others saw would not have been an ancient city, but rather a continuous stretch of houses without city walls.

Besides the wide, flat streets and rows of houses, there were also the people living in the city, all with smiles on their faces and rosy cheeks, clearly not worried about food and clothing.

Furthermore, the clothes they wore, while not all of them were luxurious new garments, were at least all clean and tidy, showing no signs of being commoners. They were in no way inferior to some of the high-ranking officials and wealthy merchants of the past.

Some of the soldiers who followed Gao Yingxiang and others into the city couldn't help but cast envious and jealous glances.

Why is it that we fight desperately in the outside world, sometimes going hungry and sometimes full, while these ordinary people can enjoy abundant food and beautiful, clean clothes?
For a moment, they all wished they could strip off their clothes and rush into the restaurants on both sides to have a feast.

Besides these, there are many shops, stalls and vendors on both sides of the non-main streets, with a dazzling array of goods that make Gao Yingxiang and his companions dazzled and wish they could buy them all.

Seeing everyone's performance, Zhao Zesheng, the magistrate of Manchuanli who had been in contact with them, couldn't help but smile even more, his chest filled with a sense of pride.

This is the result of their years of hard work under the leadership of the Heavenly King.

For ordinary people from outside the area, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to call this place paradise.

(End of this chapter)